More small space SOLUTIONS

For Charlotte, clothing the perimeter boundaries with carefully chosen plants is key. She particularly recommends the hard-working Trachelospermum jasminoides – “it smells delicious in summer and works well on a cool wall too with fewer flowers” – and the underused, shade-happy Pileostegia viburnoides, an evergreen, self-clinging climber with lush foliage and clusters of creamy white flowers. “It will take a couple of years to get going, but when it does it provides an evergreen backdrop to everything else,” she says.